Important legislation that was introduced this legislative session has been passed by both chambers and now goes to the governor’s desk for signature. That’s House Bill 1390 dealing with water management, and more specifically, dealing with the management of water through subsurface structures. This means we’re going to have reduced overland flooding, we’re going to have reduced…

There are a lot of politics behind SB2225, introduced by Republican state Senator Don Schaible of Mott. Under current law North Dakotans are allowed to go on private land for purposes like hunting as long as they a) aren’t told verbally to leave or b) the land isn’t legally posted. Schaible’s bill would end that…

During the 2014 election cycle a coalition of deep-pocketed conservation/environmental interests put a measure on the ballot to divert a windfall of oil tax revenues into a slush fund that would then make grants to the aforementioned interests. We were told, in a slick and well-financed campaign run by groups like Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants…

In the superheated atmosphere of the 2014 debate over ballot Measure 5 – which would have created an oil tax revenue slush fund for conservation groups – a number of agriculture organizations cried foul over a partnership between the federal government and the sponsors of Measure 5. Specifically Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants forever. It seems…

Did you know that North Dakota Game & Fish dollars – money from fees paid for hunting and fishing licenses, among other things – are being used to subsidize employees for Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever? I found out about it by filing an open records request with the Game & Fish Department, and I…

About a week ago I wrote about an on-going controversy over three Ducks Unlimited employees who work for the federal government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Many people – including this observer – see that as inappropriate given that Ducks Unlimited is an organization with a very real political agenda (they spent millions trying to pass Measure…

While North Dakotans were debating Measure 5 on the 2014 ballot – that was the one which would have diverted hundreds of millions in oil tax revenues to a slush fund for conservation groups – farm groups began to wonder why the measure’s primary sponsor, Ducks Unlimited, was allowed to hire personnel for the federal…

If you want to spend millions upon millions of dollars on two unsuccessful conservation ballot measures – one derailed by petition fraud, the other derailed by 79 percent of the voters – while simultaneously alienating most of the people in the state where you operate, then Steve Adair is your man. The Bismarck-based director for…

The backlash from the epic flop that was Measure 5 on the 2014 ballot continues. Ducks Unlimited, ostensibly a pro-hunting nonprofit that is masquerading has a left-wing environmental activism group, was the primary mover-and-shaker behind a constitutional measure on the ballot last year which would have created a massive oil-funded slush fund for conservation groups. It…

Ducks Unlimited was the most visible group behind Measure 5 on the November ballot last year. That measure, if it had passed, would have created a slush fund for conservation interests like Ducks Unlimited. The group spent millions pushing first a petition drive, which garnered about 40,000 signatures to put the constitutional amendment on the…